by Eight years after its founding, Neuralink owner Elon Musk says the first device was implanted in the human brain.
Heading to X to celebrate, Musk said “Initial neuron spike detection results show promise”. Spikes are the activity of neurons, which send information to the brain and body.
It could be a revolutionary use of technology. And, just as Tesla helped make electric vehicles mainstream, the big question is whether Neuralink can have the same paradigm-shifting impact in the field of brain implants.
The primary initial use for such an implant is to help paralyzed people live more independently. But the ambition does not end there.
What is Neuralink and how does it work?
The first Neuralink implant is called Telepathy, according to Musk. “It enables you to control your phone or computer, and through them almost any device, just thinking,” he added say.
“The front users are those people who have lost the use of their limbs. Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or an auctioneer. That’s the goal.”
There is a long history of such efforts. In the 1970s, Jacques Vidal used eye movement monitoring to enable paralyzed patients to control a computer mouse. The first human brain-computer interface (BCI) implant was installed in a person in the late 90s.
And the pioneer of those early experiments, Philip Kennedy, paid to have a Neuralink precursor implanted in his head in 2014.
Just like Neuralink, these implants monitor brain activity to translate it into computer input, in what could be called telepathy – hence the name of this first Neuralink product.
“From a few neurons, patients could move a cursor on a computer screen and communicate by picking words or letters from a menu,” reads the MIT Technology Review’s explanation of Kennedy’s career.
However, Kennedy ended up paying to have the implant removed, as the implant site failed to heal properly, inviting a potential infection. But, 10 years later, Neuralink is effectively implanting the successor to this work.
Neuralink was granted FDA (food and drug administration) approval for human trials in May 2023, leading to this first human implantation in January 2024.
US citizens can register on the Neuralink website to express interest in participating in future trials.
What happens now that a Neuralink device is in a person’s head? “I expect that Neuralink will want to give the participant time to recover before they start training their system with the participant,” says Anne Vanhoestenberghe, professor of Active Implantable Medical Devices at King’s College London.
“We know that Elon Musk is very good at generating publicity for his company, so maybe we can expect announcements as soon as they start testing, although in my mind real success should be evaluate in the long term, according to how stable the interface is over time. , and how much it benefits the participant.”
How does Neuralink work?
You can think of the Neuralink implant as two parts. The casing is outside, which contains the battery and electronics. It sits on the skull.
This includes the “brain” of the device and its Bluetooth chip/antenna. Neuralink transmits data wirelessly, like sending music to a pair of wireless headphones.
The second part is the neural lace: “1,024 electrodes distributed over 64 threads” must be implanted under the patient’s skull, on the surface of the brain.
A robot surgeon is used for this part, as the procedure requires precision that the human hand cannot.
While the process may have changed a bit since then, Musk explained the basics of invasive surgery back in 2020.
“You take a piece of skull the size of a coin. And then the robot inserts the electrodes. The device then replaces the removed part of the skull. And we basically close that with super glue, which is how a lot of wounds are closed. And then you can walk around right after that. It’s really cool,” Musk said, as reported by VentureBeat.
This lattice of electrodes allows the Neuralink device to monitor the firing of brain neurons, seen as signal “spikes”. And by monitoring patterns in these spikes, Neuralink can learn to recognize patterns of brain activity—a form of mind reading.
This concept is nothing new, but where older implants only collect a few hundred of these spike data points, Neuralink can register 1,024. As a result, it should be able to identify more complex thought patterns, and translate them into actions on a computer or, taking the concept further, into a prosthetic robotic arm, for example.
How much would Neuralink cost?
Neuralink has not announced pricing for the implant. However, Bloomberg estimates the cost to be $10,500 (about £8,300), and suggests that insurance companies would be charged $40,000 (£31,500) for the procedure in the US.
Dangers and controversies of Neuralink
Neuralink hardware has been tested on animals. In 2020, the company demonstrated the technology implanted in a pig called Gertrude, and it is known that monkeys and sheep were also subjected to animal testing.
More than 1,500 animals were killed as a result, according to a Reuters investigation. This led to a federal investigation reported in December 2022, although this preceded the company’s FDA approval for human trials.
These human trials are also not without danger, by their very nature. There is a risk of infection and brain damage during the procedure.
